Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Would you stand? As we honor the reading of God's word, I want you to stand.
[00:00:05] I do have some notes that are uploaded on the Bible app. I think they can bring up a QR code there.
[00:00:18] We're going to wrap up today, our 50th celebration Jubilee theme.
[00:00:28] You can get some of the notes that I've got there, but 2 Kings, chapter 2. If you'll open your Bible, 2nd Kings, chapter 2.
[00:00:35] This is a really, really cool story. We're going to begin at verse one. We're going to read most of the chapter, but I think this will hold your attention. It's a pretty cool story. And it came to pass when the Lord was about to take up Elijah to heaven by a whirlwind that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.
[00:00:55] And Elisha, I'm sorry. Elijah said to Elisha, I don't know why the Father and son have to have such close names to each other. It makes it difficult to preach on. But you guys check with me, all right? Elijah said to Elisha, stay here, please. The Lord has sent me on to Bethel. But Elisha said, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethel.
[00:01:21] Now the sons of the Prophets who were at Bethel came to Elisha and said, talking to the Son, now, do you know the Lord is going to take your Master from over you today? And he says, yes, I know. Be quiet.
[00:01:34] Elijah said, elisha, stay here now they're at Bethel. Stay here, please. The Lord has sent me onto Jericho. But he said, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.
[00:01:47] So they came to Jericho.
[00:01:49] Now the sons of the Prophets who were at Jericho came to Elisha and said, do you know the Lord will take your Master from over you today? He says, yes, I know.
[00:01:59] Be quiet.
[00:02:00] Elisha said, stay here, please. The Lord has sent me over to the Jordan. But he said, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So the two of them went on.
[00:02:13] 50 men of the Son of the Prophets went, and they stood facing them at a distance while the two of them stood by the Jordan.
[00:02:20] Now Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up, and struck the water. It was divided this way and that. So the two crossed over on dry ground. So it was when they crossed over, Elijah says to Elisha, just picture this. They've just crossed over a split Jordan river. He turns to him and he says, ask, what may I do for you before I am taken away from you?
[00:02:48] Elijah said, please let A double portion of your spirit be upon me.
[00:02:58] So he said, ah, that's a hard thing.
[00:03:03] Nevertheless, if you see me when I'm taken from you, it shall be so for you. But if not, it will not be so.
[00:03:09] So it happened as they. I like this. As they continued on and talked, suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire that separated the two of them. Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. So Elijah saw it, and he cried out, my father. My father. The chariots of Israel and its horsemen. He saw them him no more. He took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. He took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen down from him and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan.
[00:03:47] He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him.
[00:03:51] He struck the water, and he said, where is the Lord God of Elijah?
[00:04:01] When he had struck the water, it was divided this way and that Elisha crossed over. The sons of the prophets who were from Jericho saw him. And he says, the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha. And they came to meet him, and they bowed to the ground before him.
[00:04:19] And this Trinity Church is God's word.
[00:04:24] Believe it to be true. You may be seated.
[00:04:29] Such a powerful story. I feel like we could just pray, say amen, and we'd be done with the day.
[00:04:33] But I got a couple things I want to say about the text.
[00:04:37] It's incredible when we hear stories like the testimonies that we've been playing over the last number of weeks to reflect on what God has done in Trinity Church for the last 50 years.
[00:04:50] But even as the month comes to an end and we begin to look forward, one of the common themes that I've heard, Pastor Jim, Pastor Tim, others who have preached prophecies that have come forward, I think we're all beginning to dream about what the next 50 years of this church can look like. And the part that you and I get to play in that as we look at this story today, what you have is a couple prophets who are going for a walk.
[00:05:19] Elijah and his protege, his spiritual son, successor. They are walking, they are talking, and they go to three places. And I think all three of them have significance. These are the main ideas that we'll build around today. First they come to Gilgal. Everyone say Gilgal sounds like it's out of Lord of the Rings, but it's not. It's right here in the Bible. Gilgal. This is what I would call the place of remembrance.
[00:05:48] The place of remembrance. They start here in Gilgal and that's significant if you understand the history of Israel.
[00:05:58] There's a moment in the Old Testament. Moses, a number of years earlier, has led Israel, the children of Israel, into freedom from their Egyptian slavery.
[00:06:11] They spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness. And another transition happens. Moses prays for Joshua and anoints him as the successor.
[00:06:23] And Joshua, he then comes to the Jordan river, very right across the river from where Elijah and Elisha are.
[00:06:33] And they're coming out of this supernatural season with Moses where they've wandered through the desert. They've had clothing and shoes that didn't wear out. They've had manna that rained down from heaven. They had no sickness or disease. There was supernatural provision all throughout visitations. I mean, the glory of God came down on a mountain. God gave his commandments to Moses and the children of Israel. They were literally led around by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
[00:07:12] But Joshua is now standing there with Israel as the new leader. And the Lord speaks to him in Joshua chapter 3.
[00:07:21] In verse 7, the Lord said to Joshua, today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of Israel, that they may know the same way I was with Moses, I will be with you.
[00:07:33] You shall command the priests who bear the Ark of the covenant, saying, when you have come to the edge of the water of the Jordan and stand on the Jordan. So Joshua said to the children of Israel, come here and hear the words of the Lord your God.
[00:07:47] If you continue the story, he begins to share with them the very instruction that the Lord has just given them. He asks the priests to come forward. And the moment their feet touch the edge of the Jordan river, the Bible says that the Jordan splits in two and they cross over and now have fully entered into the land that God had promised a generation earlier.
[00:08:10] So it's at this very location that Elijah and Elisha begin their journey.
[00:08:17] One of the things that Joshua did is when they crossed over, they set up 12 memorial stones representing the 12 tribes of Israel. And he said, this is going to be a memorial for all future generations, that everybody who comes to this place will remember what God did for Moses, what he did for all of Israel, and what he's going to continue to do for us. And this is where that famous declaration comes. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Some of you may want to go back to Egypt. Some of you may go forward and forget. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. So he erected these memorial stones, laid them up here in Gilgal?
[00:09:03] And I believe there's a lot of significance when we take time to remember.
[00:09:09] I don't think it's a mistake that Elijah and Elisha decided to begin this journey right here at Gilgal, the place of remembrance, where they looked at the memorial stones and they looked at what Joshua did, and we just read the account. God's about to repeat the very same miracle for them.
[00:09:29] So why, why would we, as Trinity Church, take time to look back on former worship leaders and founding pastors and faith steps and miracle stories? Why would we put in stone right here in Legacy park, core values that came out of a powerful encounter that Pastor Jim had with the Lord years ago.
[00:09:51] Because there is a present power in remembrance.
[00:09:57] There is a present power in remembrance. I don't know if you've ever experienced this, if you've been hanging around church for any amount of time. I'm sure you have. But have you ever noticed that when somebody begins to share a testimony about what God has done, they share a healing testimony or about some move of God that they experience as they begin to share the testimony, as they begin to remember what the Lord has done. Have you ever noticed that the very same presence that they experienced in that moment very often is made manifest right there in the meeting?
[00:10:32] I know when somebody, when a pastor who's been in a move of God begins to tell the story, I'm like, I always sit on the edge of my seat with anticipation because I have the expectation that as we remember, God's about to do something.
[00:10:45] This is why when we approach the table of communion, yes, it's remembrance and yes, there's symbols that we recognize. Jesus, thank you for what you have done. But there is a very present power when we remember the sacrifice of Jesus. It should not be an unusual thing that people get healed or people get blessed or people encounter the Lord Jesus as they partake of that ceremony of remembrance.
[00:11:12] This is why I think it was three weeks ago myself, Pastor Jim, a number of our pastors were sitting on stage and I always like to ask him to tell the Argentina story.
[00:11:23] I'm not going to retell it now, but you ought to go back. You can watch the message from a couple weeks ago. The reason I like that is because it personally impacted. It impacted my life when I first became a pastor like Pastor Bobby, I was raised Baptist. I didn't know Holy Ghost. We didn't believe in miracles. We didn't do any of that stuff. Great Bible preaching, but that was about it.
[00:11:45] And so I came to Christ for the nations. I encountered the Spirit of God, and immediately my wife and I were 20. I was 21. She was 20 when we were asked to take our first church.
[00:11:58] And as we came in now, I've been, like, saturated in Holy Spirit culture.
[00:12:04] I love the Holy Ghost, but the pastor that I had grown up under was Baptist and thought, you know, is when the seeker sensitive movement was a really big deal. And so as I took that first church, I'll never forget, he met with me, he looked me in the eyes and he says, jacob, you have a choice to make.
[00:12:22] You can be a seeker church that will appeal to the lost who are looking to come to your church, and you will be able to impact the entire city.
[00:12:35] Or you can be a Pentecostal church that goes after miracles and revival.
[00:12:42] And this was a guy I grew up with. He looks me in the eye and he says, but your church will never grow more than a hundred if you do that.
[00:12:52] I lived under that declaration. When we took that church, it was 60.
[00:12:57] It rapidly grew to 30.
[00:13:03] And I was thinking, what this pastor said is probably true. And it caused me to question whether or not I should continue to go after the substance of God, continue to go after miracles. And so I'll never forget, years later, by the way, God did bless that church. We continue to be Pentecostal and believe for miracles. And God grew the church way more than a hundred, and it was awesome. But I'll never forget, I became an assembly of God evangelist and I moved here to Texas. And it was the first district Council. It's the meetings that we've been hosting here the last number of years where, you know, a thousand pastors come and they gather here in the. In the sanctuary. Well, the first district council I ever came to, Pastor Jim was the keynote speaker.
[00:13:46] And he stood up that night and he said words that were almost verbatim what I had heard from the pastor that I'd grown up under.
[00:13:55] He said that the seeker sensitive movement was something that was so significant and that everybody was telling him, you need to keep your services under an hour. You can't have long worship, you can't preach long. Don't do altar calls, don't pray in tongues, don't do the weird stuff.
[00:14:09] But he'd encountered God and he shared the story about how he'd encountered God in Argentina.
[00:14:15] Tens of thousands gathering, demons coming out, seeing people levitate under demon power. And then regular ordinary Christians, not ordained ministers, taking authority and seeing the power of God break out.
[00:14:29] And that was his ruined for normal kind of moment.
[00:14:34] I don't care if we're gonna be a little church, but I believe that I would rather have the spirit of God, the substance I'd rather have. I'd rather go after these kinds of.
[00:14:47] Even if it means we don't have high impact, even if we're small, but what we've come to discover. And this was his testimony that night at district Council as we began to discover that there's a whole lot of people, there's a lot of people that are hungry for a move of God. There's a lot of people that are hungry. And I. I remember sitting there in that meeting and thinking he heard words that were almost verbatim what my pastor had told me growing up.
[00:15:14] But he proved him wrong.
[00:15:16] We were watching what God has done, and I wanted to call the pastor I grew up under. Hey, you need to come see this church. They have impacted the city. We have teachers in all of the schools. We've got chaplains in all of this. We've gone into foreign nations and turned cities upside down. And we've done it not by being seeker sensitive, but by being spirit sensitive, by being sensitive. God, what are you speaking to us? What are you doing?
[00:15:46] Pastor, thank you.
[00:15:49] Thank you for saying yes to the Holy Spirit when others said no.
[00:15:58] It's important to remember.
[00:16:00] I get fired up just thinking about it.
[00:16:03] Maybe you do too.
[00:16:06] But this is where the prophets begin. They begin in a place of remembrance.
[00:16:11] And God's about to do the very same miracle. And I like what happens because Elijah looks at Elisha and he's not really nice, honestly.
[00:16:21] You stay here.
[00:16:23] God told me to go to Bethel, but you stay here.
[00:16:27] Tries to lose him, tries to shake him. But Elisha is just like, listen, as long as you're alive and I'm alive, I'm sticking with you. If God said to go here, I'm going there.
[00:16:36] And I don't know how you picture these guys, but Elijah's not like some jolly, happy pastor, you know? Elisha, hey, will you mentor me? Can we get some coffee sometime? Will you just sit? And that's not how this thing worked. In fact, Elisha, Elijah was a wartime prophet. You don't understand that about this guy. He was a wartime prophet. This was the guy who confronted Jezebel. There were significant demon powers and worship systems in Israel at the time, worshiping the prophets of baal, child sacrifice, worshiping astro sexual immorality, deities that were built around these things. And Elijah was the one to confront these things. You know the story, calling down Fire on the. On the sacrifice. God answers. And. And people miss this part. We don't tell this part in Sunday school. But as soon as fire comes down, he instructs Israel, who's all gathered around, grab the prophets of BAAL and Asherah, drag them down to the river, and there he slaughters them.
[00:17:41] This is a wartime prophet.
[00:17:44] This guy. I mean, Elijah.
[00:17:47] Elijah's bad man.
[00:17:51] Even the way he recruits. I had my friend Ryan make me something, because you see this reference to this idea of the mantle. Everybody say mantle.
[00:18:01] Now, what is a mantle? A mantle, if you study it, you can look this up online.
[00:18:06] It's like a cloak.
[00:18:07] It's a garment. It could be wrapped around their waist. It could be wrapped around the shoulders. But in the text that we're reading, Elijah was known to have an animal skin that he would carry around with him, that he would put on himself as he would prophesy, as he would minister. In fact, years later, John the Baptist, they said he was a prophet like Elijah. He was known. One of the markers of him was that he wore an animal skin and a leather belt. And so when Elijah is looking for his successor, his spiritual son, he's walking along.
[00:18:44] He has his mantle.
[00:18:46] He's walking, and he sees a young boy working in a field.
[00:18:52] He's walking along, and the Bible says, he takes the mantle and he throws it onto Elisha.
[00:19:02] This is a picture of his prophetic ministry. This is a picture of the anointing that is upon his life. He takes and he throws it upon his spiritual successor.
[00:19:12] And he says, follow me and Elisha.
[00:19:16] Young boy, farmer boy.
[00:19:20] Okay.
[00:19:22] Can I go kiss my father and mother goodbye for real? Read the story. Can I go kiss my father and mother? And Elijah, the grumpy wartime prophet, gets irritated that he wants to say goodbye to his family.
[00:19:40] And this is the beginning of a beautiful journey.
[00:19:47] God knew Elisha would face his own demon powers.
[00:19:54] God knew that Elisha had to be formed into the prophet that God had called him to be. He would have his own demons to fight. He would have his own battle. And so God took a wartime prophet who was a little rough around the edges to shape him into what the next generation needed.
[00:20:13] Now, I don't know about you, I don't know what kind of people God has used to form you, but none of my mentors have been the type of people like, let's just sit and sip coffee and talk about Jesus together.
[00:20:27] Man, I could tell you stories all day long.
[00:20:31] People rough around the edges, refusing to meet with me. Being a Jerk to me. But this is the exact thing that God does when he's shaping you to be the man or woman that he's called you to be. So hear me, hear me on this.
[00:20:47] Quit.
[00:20:50] Don't quit. Somebody's rough around the edges. A pastor. You look to a leader. You look to someone. Hurts your feelings. They didn't return my call, or they were kind of rude, or they didn't look at me or shake my hand. Shake off the offense.
[00:21:04] Don't give into the church hurt. Come on, shake it off. God is putting grit, endurance, and strength. Well, they hurt my feelings. They're mean. Get over it.
[00:21:19] This whole, like, church hurt movement and, oh, you know, shake it off.
[00:21:29] If Elijah was leading around many in today's culture, the first time he told him, I'm leaving you behind. You stay here. God told me to do something. Most of us would have stayed.
[00:21:40] This guy was built different.
[00:21:42] He says, as long as you're alive and I'm alive and you got the word of the Lord, I'm sticking with you. And that's exactly what he did. So they go on to Bethel. Everybody say Bethel.
[00:21:53] Everybody doing good.
[00:21:55] This is what I call the place of encounter.
[00:21:59] Bethel literally translates to house of God.
[00:22:04] This is where Jacob met the Lord, the place where the Spirit was, where there was unusual levels of spiritual activity. He came to this place, he laid down on a rock, and there he saw the heavens open, and he saw the angels of God ascending and descending on a ladder.
[00:22:22] This is where he encountered the Lord, and he declared it. He anointed a rock, and he said, this truly is Bethel, the house of God. I didn't discern that the Lord was here in such an unusual way.
[00:22:35] And so again, they come to this place of. This place of encounter.
[00:22:42] Prophets going for a walk, and they stop at the place of encounter.
[00:22:49] I think it's important that we revisit the places of encounter.
[00:22:53] I think it's important that we tell the stories.
[00:22:56] But I also think it's important we don't stay there.
[00:23:01] You walk around.
[00:23:02] I could walk you around this church, and you probably got places like this too. Every time I walk by the Legacy Room, I remember being in there and casting out demons with Tommy Evans.
[00:23:12] Kathryn was a little girl at the time, and she's still scarred over the whole incident. We have to pray, healing, because, I mean, it was wild.
[00:23:21] I was standing right here when Cindy Jacobs. We had just started coming to this church, and she calls me and my wife, and. And she looks. And she's like, jacob, this isn't your ministry, Leah. This isn't your ministry. You're in this together. You're a one, two punch.
[00:23:39] And that shaped the way, you understand. We had been in ministry for about seven years by that time. We'd done everything together. But it's like, you know, she'd do worship over there, and I'd do the elders meetings over here, and she'd do nursery over there. We were always together.
[00:23:55] But that shifted my mindset.
[00:23:57] Now we began, oh, no, we are going to do this together. And we're more powerful when we do that. And when I stand here in this very spot, I remember how the Lord encountered me. My wife references sitting up there in the nosebleeds. I'll never forget. We were in a revival meeting. We were in an altar time. But she didn't come down to the altar because the spirit of God just dumped on her. As she was sitting right there above the soundboard, the spirit of God came on her so powerfully. I remember I had to tell people, no, she's okay, she's okay. People wanted to come and, like, you know, lay hands on her because she's on the ground, she's crying. But she was encountering the Lord, and I knew it that night. I had to carry her out of this room. Under the power of God, the Lord worked mightily. Substance, presence.
[00:24:46] I walked through these areas, and many of you have, like, that's where I met Jesus.
[00:24:51] That's where somebody prayed for me and healed my body. I went into that prayer room and I was oppressed by the devil. And now my mind has been healed and restored.
[00:25:01] It's important to take times to remember the encounters that we've had with the Lord.
[00:25:09] They continue to walk.
[00:25:12] And the third place they come is Jericho.
[00:25:15] Many of you will know Jericho. This was the place of victory.
[00:25:19] Everybody say victory.
[00:25:22] So as Joshua and the children of Israel cross over the Jordan and move into the promised land, this was the very first battle that they won.
[00:25:30] Supernatural account.
[00:25:32] And, you know, they remember this, and we should, too. We tell the stories of the breakthrough. We tell the stories of the visitations. We talk about the revivals that happened all along the way. But here's what I find interesting about this entire account.
[00:25:48] Everywhere Elijah and Elisha go, there are people that are camped out there.
[00:25:53] There are people that are still living in the place of visitation, in the place of encounter, in the place of victory.
[00:26:02] And this is another important consideration. Where did Elisha get it right?
[00:26:08] He had an understanding. I'm gonna go where God has said to Go. I'm not gonna stay where the last testimony was. I'm gonna visit and I'm going to remember, but I'm not going to live in that location. I want to go where God's saying to go, and I want to do what God is saying to do.
[00:26:28] Memorial stones. Remember them.
[00:26:31] Places of encounter. Visit them.
[00:26:34] Testimonies of victory and breakthrough. Share them.
[00:26:39] But one. Pastor Myles Monroe, he said, the greatest enemy of progress, your last success.
[00:26:49] Oh, if you could have been here for the revival in the 90s.
[00:26:54] That's when real moves of God used to happen.
[00:26:57] You ever heard people talk like that? Don't point fingers.
[00:27:02] If only you could have experienced what I experienced at that revival in the 80s.
[00:27:09] If only you could have heard. In fact, you'll even hear there's songs that are written. We don't sing songs like this. And so this isn't a rebuke to us at all.
[00:27:17] But you'll hear songs like, do it again, do it again, do it again.
[00:27:23] And I've got problems with that.
[00:27:27] I have challenges with that, because I'm not asking God, like, hey, that revival, would you just do that again? Just copy and paste that. That was the kind of worship. That was the kind of prayer. That was a style that I used. Do that again.
[00:27:41] Because the Bible says that his nature.
[00:27:44] You hear this in every prophetic conference if you've ever gone to one. Isaiah 43:19, Behold, I'm doing a what?
[00:27:51] I'm doing a new thing.
[00:27:53] And I used to get irritated that I heard every prophet say that. But then I began to realize, oh, no, God's always doing new things.
[00:28:02] Everywhere we go, he's doing new things. So you lean in. Lord, what are you doing today?
[00:28:08] Holy Spirit, what do you want to do today? Jesus, where are we going this time?
[00:28:14] That's where we live.
[00:28:15] 2nd Corinthians 3:18 says that we're going from glory to glory, not back, but glory to glory. Romans 1:17 says, we move from faith to faith. 2nd Kings 2. 9. He told, I want a double portion. I don't want to just repeat what you did, Elijah. I want double what you did.
[00:28:38] John 14.
[00:28:39] Jesus said, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also and greater. Everybody say, greater and greater works than these will he do. Because I go to my Father, Even Jesus.
[00:28:57] Jesus, the Son of God. Hey, y' all ought to just try and live up to my standard. He didn't.
[00:29:05] He said, what you've seen me do, you will do.
[00:29:10] And greater because I go to my father.
[00:29:15] Oh, my, I'm shouting too much.
[00:29:21] So Elisha hears his mentor telling him, hey, stop. You wait here.
[00:29:25] Trying to get rid of him. But Elisha understood the next thing God wants to do is always further than the last encounter.
[00:29:34] There's more.
[00:29:36] There's more.
[00:29:37] And so, as we step into the next 50 years of Trinity Church, you and I will run and hear me. There is an obligation to remember and to honor, but there is also an obligation to courageously follow the Word and the ways of God, the way our trailblazers and forerunners have modeled for us.
[00:30:07] I'm going to read that again.
[00:30:10] You and I who step into the next 50 years of this church, we have an obligation to remember and honor.
[00:30:19] And we have an obligation to courageously follow the Word and the ways of God, the way our pioneers and trailblazers and forerunners have modeled for us.
[00:30:36] So Elijah walking across the Jordan, he takes his mantle. The Bible says that he rolls it up.
[00:30:49] He begins to fold it. And the Bible says that he takes the mantle. And he strikes the ground at the shore of the Jordan River. And the river splits either way, and him and Elisha cross over. And he looks at him and he says, ask, what do you want?
[00:31:12] You haven't left me alone.
[00:31:14] What do you want, sir?
[00:31:19] I want a double portion of what's on your life.
[00:31:25] You ask a hard thing.
[00:31:29] Everybody say it's a hard thing.
[00:31:32] I don't know if you believe for greater glory, double portion anointing to live a supernatural life, but can I just tell you, it's going to be a hard thing.
[00:31:45] Greater glory will be hard.
[00:31:52] Pastor Bobby, in that testimony, talks about the crisis that the church was facing.
[00:31:57] He's the interim pastor.
[00:32:02] Statistically, this church should not have survived.
[00:32:06] But people talk about how they'd show up on a Wednesday night.
[00:32:10] They'd show up for service. They'd show up for worship. They'd show up to hear teaching and preaching of the Word.
[00:32:16] But what they found was a man of God on his face, crying out to God, praying and seeking the Lord, crying out for mercy. And I've heard it from some of our families who were here during that time.
[00:32:34] They'd walk in and they'd see Pastor Bobby and Jan Stovall. They'd see them crying out to the Lord and other prayer intercessors during that season there, crying out to God to have mercy on them, this precious church.
[00:32:50] They wouldn't interrupt it and say, hey, when are we going to get to the preaching? When are we going to get to the other stuff. They say this is what we're doing tonight.
[00:32:59] And an army of intercessors began to be built and began to cry out to God.
[00:33:05] And what did Pastor Bobby say? I wrote it down. He said it was the worst thing and the best thing that ever happened to me.
[00:33:15] Pastor Bobby, was it easy?
[00:33:17] It wasn't easy.
[00:33:19] But the glory that we experience today is because there were people like that who were willing to do the hard thing.
[00:33:27] I hear stories about Pastor Jim coming in and there's still scandal and there's still all kinds of mess going on in the church and I hear about public rebukes and bored me. Pastor, you need to tell the story about the fist fight. You mentioned it. You need to tell the story sometime.
[00:33:43] It's real.
[00:33:44] Was it easy?
[00:33:46] It was hard.
[00:33:48] But the glory that we experience, the presence that you and I feel today, is because there were some people who are willing to do hard things. There are some people who are willing to pray hard prayers and endure hard seasons.
[00:34:06] So Elijah and Elisha, worship team, you can come. I'm closing.
[00:34:11] Elijah and Elisha continue their walk.
[00:34:16] When a double portion. That's going to be hard.
[00:34:20] The chariots of fire abruptly come. He's caught up in a whirlwind. And the Bible says that his mantle comes back down to the earth.
[00:34:33] I love talking about remember stories. I'm a revival guy. I'll read the revival history, William Seymour and John Booth and I'll read about these, you know, the Wesley brothers and these who did incredible things for the Lord. But what it stirs my heart is not to just remember and to memorialize these great men and women of God.
[00:34:59] Where are the William Seymour's of today?
[00:35:03] Where are the Rees Howells intercessors of today? Where are these who will contend for healing revival today? What I feel like is there are generations of greats, the bonkeys of the world, sweeping millions into the kingdom, who've gone up and the mantle is dropped and nobody's picked it up.
[00:35:31] I wonder if there are some people in Trinity Church who say, I see the mantle of intercession and I see a mantle for prophetic ministry and I see a mantle for the glory of God and I see a mantle for reconciliation and I see a mantle for turning cities upside down. I see the mantle and I'll take the mantle.
[00:35:53] I'll pick up that which others have dropped and others have left behind because I believe. Hebrews 10 talks about how we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses and I can hear my spiritual fathers sometimes. Jacob, what are you doing with what I poured into your life?
[00:36:15] I believe that the apostle Paul and Peter, Elijah, these guys are looking down the church today and saying, will somebody take up the mantle?
[00:36:28] And I love what happens.
[00:36:30] Elisha takes that mantle, and he walks over to the Jordan, and he takes and does the very same thing that he had just seen.
[00:36:40] His father, who's now ascended, he takes and he says, where is the God of Elijah?
[00:36:54] And the sea splits.
[00:36:57] I have found myself doing this in the years you've heard me talk about planting a church in Hawaii.
[00:37:06] And I'll never forget Dr. Morocco looking at me.
[00:37:09] Pastor who's planted churches, and he says, jacob, if we get this right, God's gonna do the same thing in Kona that he did on Maui.
[00:37:19] You say, what is that?
[00:37:21] He took a church of a hundred people, and in a year and a half, God exploded that church to over a thousand.
[00:37:28] So as my wife and I are flying back and forth, we're having these meetings, I'm stepping out of the boat, and I'm believing God. You're gonna do the same thing here that you did for him in the 80s.
[00:37:42] And I find myself, where is the God of King's Cathedral? Where is the God of Dr. Morocco?
[00:37:54] You know, God exploded that church we planted in January of 2020.
[00:38:01] And that church began to expand, and then we got shut down because of COVID And I'll never forget, we still had the opportunity to come for the Link conference that year.
[00:38:12] Came, spent time with Pastor Jim, and I remember leaving Hawaii and coming into Texas, and nobody was wearing masks.
[00:38:21] It was the most incredible thing.
[00:38:27] Texas, come on.
[00:38:29] And I remember Pastor Jim talking about how we're gonna have church and we're gonna meet in person. We're gonna do this. And so the mantle of sanctified stubbornness from Jim Hennessy came upon me.
[00:38:52] We go back to Kona. We were the first church to open up.
[00:38:56] I'm like, where is the God of Jim Hennessy?
[00:39:07] And God was faithful.
[00:39:09] God was faithful. That's part of the reason that the church exploded the way we did. People were ready. People were ready to get back to worship. People were ready to.
[00:39:17] To come together and to assemble together. And the church grew. It was incredible.
